Oftalmologists warn of harm from lasers

Doctors from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, report on the case of a nine-year-old boy who showed up at their hospital after being blinded by an adult playing with a handheld laser, Fox News reports.

The high-power laser had passed through the boy's eye lenses and burst the blood vessels in the back of his eyes.

The high-power laser was made from a component of a dismantled home theater projector and purchased online.

The FDA regulates lasers, as it does other radiation-emitting electronic products, and separates them into classes and subclasses.

Class 3a lasers include those typically used for pointing during presentations. Their power is capped at 5 milliwatts (mW) on the visible light spectrum under federal regulation. Class 4 lasers are the type used in industrial or medical settings and are an immediate hazard.

The laser used on the boy in the new report falls into class 4, according to the researchers. It produced 1,250 mW of power.

The boy's vision eventually recovered after two months, Toth and her colleagues report in JAMA Ophthalmology. But other people are not so fortunate, Toth said.

Within the past few months, other reports of eye injuries by lasers were published in other journals, Toth said. In one case, a laser burned a hole through the back of a person's eye.

People who work with lasers should wear protective goggles, she said. "Different types of lasers require specific goggles for maximum protection."

Toth said it's also important that people don't let children play with lasers of any type.

"Even a so-called safe level can also be dangerous," she said, adding that people who think they are injured should see a doctor.

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